He was once an 18-year-old prospect, arriving on a free transfer from Ajax in the January 2018 transfer window, and like James Debayo in the current pre-season training camp squad, desperate to try and break into senior football. That breakthrough was slow and a little jittery, before he eventually found his feet and made himself at home in the men’s game.
Now, 121 games later, Struijk is every inch a senior player in Daniel Farke’s group. Having taken club skipper Liam Cooper’s spot in the back four, Struijk captained the side in the early part of last season, before his injury saw the armband and the position pass to Ethan Ampadu on matchdays. At the end of their first training session in Germany, Struijk and Ampadu quietly conferred about leading the warm-down jog around the pitch and set off together, side by side. At some point, the manager will pick one to take the armband permanently but he clearly considers them both leaders.
At least, now that Struijk is fit again, Farke can look forward to having them both on the pitch at the same time in their natural positions. When asked if he had informed Ampadu that the Welshman could move back into midfield now, Struijk laughed: “I mean, I don’t think that’s something I have to tell him. That’s probably the coach’s job. But I bet he’s excited not to play centre-back sometimes as well, even though he was doing a really really good job. I mean, it was really good. Especially like from the moment I left, we [Leeds] played really well. So it’s just unfortunate that at the end, it didn’t come our way.”
Struijk was out of action for a long time. A groin injury that Farke hoped would be a minor issue proved anything but and season-ending surgery was the ultimate outcome. So it’s fair to say he has been itching to get back on the pitch.
“I had a long time to get back to this position,” he said. “I was nearly there at the end of last season, or I was already there but not match fit yet. So I had time to work over summer, and then now two weeks or three weeks into pre-season, so feeling good. It was frustrating and yeah, well, frustrating, I mean, you just really want to play as a player, always want to play so when it didn’t go like the way that I wanted it to and then I had to go for surgery it was very unfortunate, which was a shame really because I thought we were doing well. And to be fair, at the end, we were still doing well. Only there was a couple of games where we maybe gave it away. But that’s why we have a new challenge this season.”
Watching on as your team goes through the ups and downs of a gruelling Championship season, only to finish on a heartbreaking note at Wembley, would test the patience of any player. The downsides of his injury don’t need explaining, but there was an upside for his loved ones and there is one for him now that he’s back with a new perspective gained during the frustration.
“I mean, that’s always tough because as a player you always want to play and you want to be there,” he said. “So it was tough to sit on the sideline. Especially with the result, I don’t need to speak on that. That was a disappointment.
“I would say my family probably enjoyed it. Well, this is the thing about football. Like the more you get injured, the longer you spend at home sometimes. So for my family it’s probably a good thing, but also I am really grumpy when things are not going my way. Especially like sometimes after we watch the games and frustrated when you come home or you’re happy when you come home but then you’re still frustrated because you didn’t play. So a bit of both.
“Honestly, sometimes when you work so often you almost forget really how to enjoy football as much as you’re supposed to. And then when you have a spell like this one where I don’t play for seven months so I get back on the pitch like now, I’m really enjoying, I’m happy to be back on the pitch and just enjoying every training session that I can. Football is a new challenge every year. So this season we’ve got a big season for us and we’ll see what happens.”
Though disappointed to see ‘good friend’ Archie Gray depart for Tottenham Hotspur this summer, Struijk is pleased for the teenager. He’s pleased too that there are other youngsters coming into the senior group and attempting to carry the Leeds talent-producing tradition on their shoulders. And he hopes to help them do that.
“I think over the last few seasons we have shown from the academy that we’re producing players and they’re ready – well not always – but some of them [have been] ready to join the first team,” he said. “I have to [see myself as a leader for them] and not just because they’re younger than me, I think always for me like the position I play it’s proper for me to take that role and take the responsibility, to take everyone like even the older ones as a group together. Yeah, to see them come through it’s only great for the club because it shows that we have some real talent here.”
However long it takes the teenagers to follow Struijk into the first team, if ever they do, there’s a more important overarching aim for everyone at Leeds United as they approach a new season – going one better than last term. Finishing in the top two is the ideal route to the goal but ultimately promotion by any means is how it has to end. Struijk believes they know what they need to do, because they did so much of the hard work last season. Same again, but better, is his mantra.
“I think as a team we need to do what we did for the majority last season, only the few bits that we missed out on – be better,” he said. “Easier said than done. But I mean, we’ve got pre-season to work on it. We’ve got during the season to work on it. We’ve got some new faces in who are really good players. So I’m excited for the new season.”
